15.04.11 - 24.06.11

HUMAN+: THE FUTURE OF OUR SPECIES

Science Gallery’s latest flagship exhibition HUMAN+ invites you to consider a future of augmented abilities, authored evolution, new strategies for survival and non-human encounters through a range of installations and laboratories exploring the future of our species. The exhibition opened at Science Gallery, Trinity College Dublin, on April 15th and runs until June 2011.

This major international exhibition draws together a range of installations ranging from a euthanasia roller coaster to the prosthetic head of Australian performance artist Stelarc. HUMAN+ also includes a children’s book illustrating the question on where babies come from in the IVF era to a vision of eternal life through digital means. It also features artist Eduardo Kac’s “plantimal” called the Edunia – a hybrid plant which includes the artists own DNA. HUMAN+ paints a somewhat ambiguous picture of the future of our species. What enhancements will we choose to become better humans? What happens when we live side by side with our robotic companions? How can we author our genetic futures? Find out at HUMAN+

Curators

JULIANA ADELMAN - Chair of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine Network Ireland (HSTM Network Ireland)

RACHEL ARMSTRONG - Director and Teacher at Rachel's Music Centre

MICHAEL JOHN GORMAN - Founding Director of Science Gallery

AOIFE MCLYSAGHT - Professor, Genetics TCD

ROSS MCMANUS - Professor in Molecular Medicine TCD

RICHARD REILLY - Chair of Neural Engineering TCD

CHARLES SPILLANE - Director Ryan Institute, National University of Ireland Galway

Highlights

Exhibits

Featured

COCHLEAR TABLE

The only place on the island of Ireland where university level training in Deaf Studies is offered.

TALKING WITH ROBOTS

This is your opportunity to have a chat with a robot.

FREE WILL

Are we genetically predisposed to taking risks?

FORAGERS

The world is running out of food—we need to produce 70% more food in the next 40 years according to the UN

COOK ME— BLACK BILE

The body as made up of four basic substances: yellow bile, blood, phlegm and black bile, each linked to a specific temperament…

SYNTHETIC IMMUNE SYSTEM

Participatory might turn us into our own doctors and pharmacists

AREA V5

The point at which humans start to feel physical unease with robotic agents.

IMPROVISED EMPATHETIC DEVICE (I.E.D.)

A website (icasualties.org) that updates the personal details and numbers of slain US soldiers…

SPORE 2.0

Spore 2.0 is a self-sustaining ecosystem for a rubber tree plant purchased at Home Depot

TARDIGOTCHI

Tardigotchi features two pets: a living organism and an alife avatar.

MISSION ETERNITY, DIGITAL AND MORTAL REMAINS OF TIMOTHY LEARY

Life with death and art with technology…

REPRODUCTIVE FUTURES

As our methods of reproduction become increasingly more diversified?

PORTRAITS OF AIMEE MULLINS

Aimee Mullins first received worldwide media attention as an athlete…

YOUR PERSONAL BIOSPHERE

In this work the artist imagines taking a small patch of farmland from his childhood and rolling it into his own personal cocoon.

CAPACITY, PROCESS & PLEASURE/ PAIN

Capacity and Process reveal the body’s pulmonary and alimentary systems…

NATURAL HISTORY OF ENIGMA

The central work in the Natural History of the Enigma is a ‘plantimal’, a new life form created by Eduardo Kac…

H5N1

The H5N1 audio works were produced for radio broadcast on the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation by Nerve Theory in 2006.

MY ROBOT COMPANION

What will we do when life extension technologies become the norm…

STRATEGIES IN GENETIC COPY PREVENTION

If life does anything, it makes copies of itself…

APHASIA MECHANICA

This filmed work imagines an evolutionary future of physical interrelationships between organism and technology…

HUMAN VERSION 2.0

Day after day, we give more and more power to machines

EUTHANASIA COASTER

Euthanasia Coaster is a hypothetical euthanasia machine in the form of a roller coaster,

OBLIQUE—IMAGES FROM STELARC’S EXTRA EAR SURGERY

In Oblique the twisted bodies, discoloured flesh and extensions into the bodily space normally associated with Baroque imagery have been transformed into an extended body,

SONG OF THE MACHINE

What if we could change our view of the world with the flick of a switch?

IF NOT NOW THEN WHEN

If Not Now Then When is a personal meditation on the physical memory of the body as its own landscape

THE HUMAN POLLINATION PROJECT

The Human Pollination Project brings attention to the human reliance on the pollination services provided by honeybees

PROSTHETIC HEAD

The Prosthetic Head is an embodied conversational agent that speaks to the person who interrogates it,